Most of the time of the time I’d rather be living my experiences than writing about them. This makes it rather challenging to be a “writer”. (I don’t even really consider myself a writer, but that’s another thing I hope to write about soon – ha ha! I am shocked that this is my first blog post of the year — in April — but I vow the next will follow soon!)
Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook, (etc, etc, etc…) have become such an intrinsic part of our culture. Being the dinosaur I am, it’s just this blog and FB for me. I have even more dinosaur-ish friends who engage in no social media whatsoever, and I admire them, just as I cherish the few who don’t have mobile phones. I’m somewhere in the middle. These tools connect me with people and information when I am in need, and, admittedly, sometimes when I am bored. I am grateful, with a soupçon of resentment. I don’t post a lot, so when I do, it’s usually because I have experienced something of such salience to me that it overrides my privacy instincts and my desire to be doing anything but sitting and typing.
My last FB was about book sales. Each time I have presented a reading, nobody goes home empty-handed, and the volume of gratitude and praise I’ve received has been enough to make me overwhelmingly buoyant. But I recently filed my taxes, which required calculations, which revealed actual numbers. I shared the sinking feelings, the disappointment and frustration I felt, realizing that my is selling at a sluggishly slow rate. I knew that sales are only a facet of the big picture, and that as a detail person I can tend to get sidetracked by the little picture, which is constantly in flux. I am very happy about my book, proud of it, myself, my husband, and I do trust that it is carving out its own path, finding where it needs to go. But I didn’t feel like posting about that. I wanted to moan a little.
The content of the responses was so heartening. Some friends assure me how good the book is. Some people share their own experiences of feeling disappointment. Some people remind me to look at the bigger picture.
The volume and tone of comments provoked in me an interesting train of thought, examining motives (mine and others’) for posting and commenting. Overall, the sense I get is that my friends want to ease my suffering. That says a lot about my friends! My inward reflecting reveals a variety of reasons for any post. Sometimes I express myself just for fun. On that odd day when writing comes easily, it seems a shame to keep it to myself. I hope to bring a smile to someone’s face, and even better, a hearty laugh! I enjoy the process and I enjoy the feedback. Sometimes, though, feedback isn’t just icing on the cake; part of me craves it. I’m attached to there being some kind of result.
In these cases, I may write to elicit concern or interest about something that’s important to me. This in turn makes me feel validated, of course. Occasionally I seek help. More often, empathy. Occasionally I just want to shake things up. Most often though, I want to feel understood. I admit that although I have a very tender heart (or maybe because of this) I can keep people at a distance. For a variety of reasons I often find it easier to be alone. And then of course, because of this, I don’t feel fully seen and known. So sometimes, it’s good to reveal my shadow side.
It’s good to be real, and share my woes and frustrations. I would find it tiresome and dishonest to present only my “best side” all the time. It’s also good to remember that the shadow is just part of the big picture. We all have our own emotional weather system that changes day to day. But underneath that is the core of who we are. It’s not even a cup half-empty or half-full; it’s a cup overflowing.
I encourage you all to look a little more closely at why you post the things you do. What does it mean to you, to share bits of your life in this virtual way, with people you might never have even met? Ultimately, is it a poor substitute for what we’re not getting in “real” life? Or is this real enough? Being the age I am and having lived for decades without social media, it doesn’t feel real enough to me; it’s just a proxy for real. I’ll get into this more with my next post, sooner rather than later, I hope!
SEE with a WHY 